grow you & your company

Tag: love

Seeing unhelpful behavior from someone on the team, we tend to either avoid or press.

If we tend to avoid, we don’t want the conflict. But then we will keep missing the opportunities to call people on unhelpful behaviors. They will believe we tacitly agree with their approach. The longer we wait, the harder it is to call them on it, and the worse it gets.

If we tend to press, we like to tell it like it is. Usually, they will read anger or at least frustration in us. But this unwittingly causes withdrawals from the relationship bank accounts we have with others. The more we press, the more likely they are to give up on us.

Seeing unhelpful behavior, our job is not to press or avoid. It is to go for tough love.

The sages tell us that there are only two reactions to anything: fear or love. Nothing else. So if we catch ourselves feeling bad or trying to attack, avoid, complain, or criticize anything, we are in fear.

The solution to whatever we fear is to love it. This does not mean we should accept something that is unacceptable. It means that we are to pause and wait for a better-feeling, more love-centered solution than attack, avoid, etc. (This works wonderfully well, by the way.)

At work, this looks a lot like good leadership and wise business practices.

At the base of everything we experience is fear and love. That’s it. That’s all. We are a bundled blend of these. We are heading toward more love and less fear.

Fear impels a need to control actively (make stuff happen, attack) or passively (avoid, defend). Control is silly: things are way too complex to control; and people and things don’t want to be controlled. Fear and control create resistance. Fear & control create ideas and actions that create more fear and control.

Love, on the other hand, inspires self and others to ideas and actions that work well and work well together.

The trap here is to say, “Yes, yes. I get it.” And then continue to fear something at some level. Or to say, “That’s ridiculous.” and continue to experience resistance.

Compassion for self and others is the cure for fear. Noting what feels good guides us toward love and away from fear.

Before we direct, correct, encourage, sell to, influence, plead with, or praise people, let’s take a moment to quietly love them. If we can’t love them, let’s appreciate them. We can find even some small aspect about who they are that we honestly appreciate. It takes a minute or two before a meeting. With practice, we can do it in a second or two.

It’s as if we are opening a small, safe, and completely appropriate channel between our heart and theirs. It reminds us both about our shared humanity. It encourages mutual respect and trust. And it fortifies the foundation upon which we can do great work together.

To do that, let’s first distinguish power from its opposite. Power is the stance of a person who knows who she is, who understands his habits and fears, and who, no matter what happens or may happen, remains undefended and clearly focused on and in (though not of) this moment. It seems that, just by being present, a powerful person makes desired results happen more easily. Power builds on itself.

The opposite of power is force or control. Control (or force) is the stance of a defensive person. Not knowing themselves, forceful people blindly deploy their defenses with disappointing and even destructive results. Controlling, forceful people generate resistance to desired results even as they seek to make things happen. Force and control eventually collapse.

Of course, power and its opposite are not binary states; they seem to be two ends of a spectrum. We appear to sit somewhere on the line between the two.

Because power and force can take many and similar forms, we can confuse them. One forceful person can seem docile and a powerful one can seem demanding. That’s why we need to keep the distinction between the two. Otherwise we can be tempted to emulate or distance ourselves from the wrong one.

In your corner,

Mike

PS: As in, trying not to be powerful for fear we’d be forceful. Or acting forceful because we think that is what is powerful. Happens all the time.
PPS: Just so we’re clear: power comes from deep love. Force comes from fear.
PPPS: Really, all of us are 100% powerful. Yes, especially you. If it doesn’t seem so it is because the opposite of power is temporarily covering the power.

The sages have always said that there are just two emotions: love and fear. It’s helpful to see that these are two sides of the same coin. Love is what you feel whenever you are allowing and appreciating what you want. Fear is what you feel whenever you are holding yourself away from what you want.

When you feel good, you are in love. When you feel bad, you are in fear; you are holding love away from you. Success and love are tightly related.

Sometimes we compete on price not value. Sometimes we attribute the basest of motivations to others and similarly justify our own slide. Sometimes, when we notice what others are doing, we withhold, we protect, we do the minimum, we go through the motions, we complain. Sometimes we race to the bottom where we all lose.

Such races are neither required nor inevitable. We race there out of habit and out of fear.

We can also race to the top where we all win. We can engage, give with no need for return, lean in, teach, lend a hand, and compete on value and love. We race here when we remember how great it feels, how very real problems melt away, and how all the benefits arise from simply participating.

There are two ways of thinking about anything.
You can look at it from the perspective of fear. Or you can look at it from the point of view of love. One feels bad and leaves you trying to figure out how to control things, make or prevent things from happening. The other feels good and leaves you quietly excited and curious about how it will all unfold.